Lost
by Blaise
Summary: At the peak of the Hegen Hub crisis, Illyan is captured. Or is he?


Lost

_At the peak of the Hegen Hub crisis, Illyan is captured. Or is he?_

_For Kate_

Captain Simon Illyan groaned his way back to consciousness. His head felt thick and fuzzy, the after-effect of some knockout drug. He tried to move, but found his wrists and ankles were bound. His eyes flickered open and he ignored the headache to look about him. He was in a bare, windowless room, tied down on a bed. It looked like a medical interrogation facility.

His mind whirled with memories. He had been in the middle of a final discussion with Count Aral Vorkosigan about how to negotiate his ship past Pol and into the chaotic Hub, but his replay of the scene abruptly stopped in the middle of a sentence. He examined the last few minutes of memory with great care, looking for clues as to how he had ended up here, but found absolutely nothing. Whoever had brought him here had done so with the utmost care. Well, of course they had, he would never have been caught by anything less. Cetagandans, perhaps? He was growing increasingly convinced that they were behind the Hegen Hub crisis.

He scanned his surroundings again, but interrogation facilities were the same the galaxy over. It could have been his own Imperial Security facility. There was the chair for the examiner, the bed was fixed to the floor, the lighting appeared to be permanently on and the door was secured. But he knew that he could not have been interrogated yet, even under the most unusual drugs.

A memory, very old but as clear as yesterday, flashed into his mind, of Captain Negri's exhaustive testing of the eidetic memory chip in his head. As soon as he had returned from the neurosurgeons and psychologists on Illyrica, Negri had put him through a punishing round of tests, dosing him with every imaginable chemical, not to mention other simulations of hostile interrogation, searching out the chip's weak points. They had found that even when his organic mind was wholly stupefied, the chip continued to store his sensory perceptions. Only complete unconsciousness could have caused the blank that followed his conversation with Aral. It was impossible for his chip to forget anything.

A new fear broke across his mind. Aral. Whoever had captured him must have been able to take the Prime Minister prisoner as well. Could this answer the question of what had become of Emperor Gregor, as his captors went for the hat trick, three of the most powerful men on Barrayar? Scenarios spun through his imagination, each more horrific than the last, and he began to struggle against his bonds.

To his surprise he pulled one wrist free almost at once. The sturdy webbing which held his left wrist to the bed had not been securely fastened, and he only needed to give it a single hard tug to release himself. After that it was not hard to complete his escape. He stood up and realised that he was dressed only in civilian trousers, not the undress greens he had been wearing during his meeting with Aral. Strange. But there were far more pressing problems.

The only thing in the room that might make a reasonable weapon was the chair beside the bed. It was not fixed down and had stout wooden legs. He lifted it and moved towards the door. It was secured with a palm-lock, and after a hopeful experiment of pressing it had failed, he contemplated how to get out. Perhaps it would be best to lie in wait. Sooner or later someone would come in. He was a little surprised that nobody had arrived already; surely there must be monitors detecting his movements.

A moment later he heard the tell-tale click as someone outside pressed the palm-lock and the door began to move. Illyan reacted at once, raising the chair and bringing it down ruthlessly upon the person who appeared in the doorway.

The enemy soldier reacted quickly, but not quite quickly enough to avoid the blow, and he doubled over for a stunned moment. Illyan bolted past him and began to run. He only made it three steps before another soldier appeared out of nowhere and tackled him to the ground.

'Sorry, sir,' the soldier gasped as he pinned Illyan down. The one he had hit with the chair emerged from the interrogation room and came to hold his legs as he kicked out viciously. They were strong and well-trained, and Illyan knew he could not overpower them both from this position. He stopped struggling.

Something that had been screaming at the back of his mind burst into his awareness as he realised that both his captors wore Barrayaran Imperial undress uniform, complete with ImpSec silver eyes. Genuine ones. Captured by his own men?

'Let me go!' he commanded in his most forceful, authoritative tones. It didn't work. So, it was not Cetagandans, but an internal traitor who was behind this.

'I'm sorry, sir,' the soldier kneeling on his chest said again. 'You've got to stay in the clinic.'

Illyan glanced at the two men's faces and ran a rapid comparison against his database of ImpSec employees, but as he had expected they were not there. How on earth had this conspiracy eluded his watchful men? There would be time for assigning blame later; now the task was simple: escape himself, and get Aral and Gregor out as well. Perhaps he could cause some diversion to let them get free.

He looked around. If this really was ImpSec, and he had been blindsided by some kind of coup, there must be loyal men as well as traitors around. There were many men whose loyalty he would personally vouch for, and they surely had not all been killed. After the cleanup following Vordarian's Pretendership, Illyan had a very clear idea of how to deal with such situations.

'You're not going to get away with this,' he said, his voice not threatening but confidently predicting the future.

The two guards looked at each other uncertainly, and Illyan felt a flash of triumph.

'Sir, will you come back to the clinic? You're not well.'

'Bullshit,' Illyan retorted. 'I don't know what lies you've been told, but I'm fine. If you cooperate with me you might escape charges of high treason even now.'

The guard whom he had hit, whose eye was starting to swell up, gave a grim laugh. 'Take his shoulders.'

Illyan was lifted up. He twisted, kicked out and nearly broke free. The guard holding his legs released them and drew his stunner as the other pinned his arms down.

'You can't stun him, the doctor doesn't know what it will do to his head,' the other objected breathlessly.

'Don't tell _him_ that, you idiot,' said the guard wielding the stunner. 'Besides, it's more important that he not get out.'

With the one guard training his stunner on him, the other dragged him slowly back into the interrogation room. The door slammed shut behind them. It was an ominous sound, but Illyan did not give up hope. The two guards would be able to get out. He could still escape.

'Why are you doing this?' he persisted. 'Gregor has overwhelming support. Even if you do kill me and the Prime Minister, there are millions of loyal men out there. You can't kill them all. And by causing all this chaos you'll just invite the Cetagandans to make a move and then where will you be? It's time to stop.'

The guard holding him shook his head wearily. 'Nobody's going to kill anyone. Now lie down, sir. I expect the medic will be along in a while.' He spoke as if to an idiot child, and Illyan glared at him. 'It's your turn to tell him,' he added to the other guard.

The guard with the black eye gave a groan. 'Right. Sir, your memory chip is malfunctioning and you're here until it can be fixed.'

'How stupid do you think I am?' Illyan retorted. 'There's no problem with my memory.'

'Oh, just tie him down again and let's go,' said the guard with the black eye as the other opened his mouth to answer this. 'He never believes us anyway.'

'Vorberg told me he believed him the other day, when he thought it was the Third Cetagandan War. And it would be easier if he didn't keep trying to kill us. The medtech says he's got to have a proper breakfast in a few hours, and I don't fancy groats all over my uniform again.'

Illyan looked from the one man to the other. They sounded utterly serious. Perhaps they really believed he had something wrong with him. That would make it harder for him to persuade them to help him escape.

'What year do you--I mean, what year is it, sir?' the guard continued, still with the patient look of someone dealing with an invalid.

Illyan opened his mouth to reply as he began to read the data, but closed it again. Nothing emerged from the files in his mind. It was as if that particular memory had never existed. He swallowed, and tried again. After a painful moment as his head felt stuffed with glue, the date appeared.

The guard was staring at him.

'I don't have any intention of playing your stupid games,' Illyan snapped, but his heart wasn't in it. This had never happened before. What if the guards were right? He accessed the memory again, carefully, just to check it was still there. It came up normally. He could almost believe that heart-stopping moment of blankness had never happened.

'He thinks it's the middle of the Hegen Hub War, I think,' said the other guard helpfully.

'The Hegen Hub _War_?' Illyan echoed, unable to prevent himself. Had he been unconscious for a long time, perhaps? The situation at the Hub could escalate out of control very quickly, he knew, and if Aral had been prevented from intervening, possibly it had.

'Mmm.' The first guard gave a sudden grin. 'I've got an idea. Hold on to him a moment, will you?'

The guard with the black eye came to take his arms. Illyan struggled perfunctorily, but stopped when the guard gave his arms a particularly fierce twist behind his back. Illyan recognised the move. It was taught to all the ImpSec agents, since it was practically unbreakable without breaking one's own arms in the process. Were these men really ImpSec?

They waited in silence for the other guard to come back. Illyan probed hesitantly around his head, trying some of the mental exercises he had learned when the chip had first been installed. Everything seemed fine. He could replay the entire of the scene with the guards with perfect clarity. As he did so, he looked at everything for clues, slowing the replay to explore every corner. The guards' performance was equally convincing the second time around. What on earth was going on here?

The door swung open again and the guard returned, clutching something in his hand. He came up in front of Illyan and held the object up before his face. It was a mirror.

Illyan could not help but see his reflection in it, and he froze. His hair was too thin, too grey, and there were unfamiliar lines around his eyes and mouth. It was the face of a man ten years older. He wanted to put up a hand, to make sure it was really his face, but could not move. Slowly he let out his breath, trying to retain his self-command.

'What year is it?' he asked in a level voice.

The guard told him.

Illyan looked away from the mirror and stood silent for a moment. At last he said, 'You can let me go. I won't fight.'

Cautiously the guard holding him released his arms. Illyan stretched them to get the feeling back, then one hand crept to his face. He felt the lines beneath his fingers. The guards were both giving him pitying looks.

'What happened?' he asked finally. 'At the Hegen Hub, I mean?' Information, that was always what he needed, even now.

'Oh, we won,' said the guard, lowering the mirror. 'The Cetagandans have been real quiet, since. Got some good treaties out of it too. And the Emperor was fine.'

'Good,' Illyan sighed. 'And Miles--Ensign Lord Vorkosigan, that is? Was he all right?'

The guards looked at each other, and Illyan's stomach clenched.

'What happened to Miles?' he demanded. 'Did he survive?'

'Oh yes,' said the guard with the mirror hastily. 'Yes, he's all right too.' But there was something in his eyes that told otherwise.

'What _happened_?' Illyan persisted, looking from one to the other.

It was the guard whose eye he had blacked who answered, not without a touch of glee. 'You fired him a few weeks ago. Ripped off his silver eyes and socked him in the nose, I heard.'

Illyan recoiled as if the guard had punched him. He had fired Miles? For what? He dared not ask. He thought of Aral's shame and disappointment if Miles had done something serious enough to deserve firing. Then he thought of Cordelia. If he had really struck Miles, she would be sure to have something to say about it. His memory produced some alarmingly vivid pictures of what had happened to another man who had threatened her son.

For a moment he considered interrogating the guards at great length to find out every last detail of what had happened in the ten years from when his memory apparently stopped to the present. A few vaporous images appeared, not from his chip but his organic memory: sitting in an office with two women soldiers opposite, furious grief spurting up inside him; happiness, entirely inexplicable, on a sight of a white-haired Aral arriving for what looked to be the annual Winterfair Ball with not one but two short sons trailing him. One was hugely fat. _Lord Mark_, some hitherto silent part of his memory supplied. He swallowed. His final desperate hope that this was some deeply-plotted trick died.

The guards were still looking at him, pity clear on their faces, and his spine stiffened. He could not ask them to guide him through the blind alleys of his own mind.

'Get him here,' he said abruptly. They stared. 'Miles Vorkosigan. Get him here.'

'Um--yes, sir. I'll pass the word on,' said the guard with the black eye.

'Good. Go.' Illyan waved them towards the door, a brusque gesture to conceal his inner terror.

The guard who still held the mirror in his hand hesitated, began to say something, stopped at the glare on Illyan's face, turned and followed his fellow out. The door clicked shut behind them.

Illyan stood quite still for a moment. Then, mechanically, he picked up the fallen chair and set it upright by the bed. He sat down and waited for Miles. But Miles did not come.

_Blaise  
Oxford  
1st May 2005_

_Please review, all criticism happily welcomed_


End file.
